Finance Ministry

This would be the 22nd phase of sale of electoral bonds, according to a statement issued by the Union Finance Ministry on Thursday. The government had notified the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 on January 2, 2018. These can be purchased by a person who is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India.

Addressing the FICCI LEADS summit here, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that UPI is aiming to achieve a target of 1 billion transactions in a day in the next five years. Today, even if there is no brick or mortar bank branches in rural areas, people are able to access banking facilities due to digitisation of financial services, Sitharaman added.

"Prices of major inputs like iron ore and steel have sobered in the global markets. This coupled with the measures taken by the government to rationalise tariff structures of inputs to augment domestic supply has helped to keep cost push inflation in consumer items under control," the Finance ministry said.

In the year-ago period, direct tax collections stood at Rs 5.29 lakh crore, which was 30.17 per cent higher than the net collections for the corresponding period of the previous year. The present collections are 37.24 per cent of the total budget estimates for 2022-23, an official statement by the Finance Ministry said.

Addressing the India Ideas Summit, RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the most efficient system for cross-border payments. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in the Union Budget that CBDC would be launched during 2022-23.

Out of this, 53.2 per cent of external debt was denominated in US dollars, the Indian rupee denominated debt was estimated at 31.2 per cent and was the second largest, according to the status report on India's external debt 2021-22, released by the Finance Ministry on Monday.

In a recent report, the Department of Economic Affairs said the country's external debt continues to be sustainable and prudently managed. "As at end-March 2022, it stood at $620.7 billion, growing by 8.2 per cent over the level a year ago. External debt as a ratio to GDP (gross domestic product) was 19.9 per cent, while reserves to external debt ratio was 97.8 per cent," the report said.

FICCI has claimed that the decision to impose the export duty, will have no positive impact on the Indian steel industry, but it will adversely affect pig iron producers making it unviable for them to export surplus pig Iron. Merchant pig iron producers are forced to export surplus pig Iron due to vagaries in domestic demand and to sustain the operations.

The Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have earmarked measures to safeguard the general public from being defrauded by scamsters posing as bank employees, financial advisors and loan agents. The RBI has also issued Master Directions for classification and reporting of frauds by commercial banks and select financial institutions.

According to a Finance Ministry notification, export duty on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) has been hiked to Rs 2 per litre from zero. At the same time, a Rs 2 hike was effected on export duty on diesel to Rs 7 per litre from Rs 5 per litre. All these changes will come into effect from August 19.